Rich, (@3.27) i do too; and some that sounded shitty by the third play. it was my habit back then to immediaztely (after one listen) record cassette releases onto a tdk cassette. almost all of those still sound good, after 20-40 years.

Jeff @3.35 -that's interesting...and good news, though i did get sucked in to maybe 5 boxes of maxells, (as a compensation gift from druckers or crazy eddie's when they found a loophole in their "best price guarantee") and a few sony, basf, and others - all of which sucked then and suck worse now.

one of the cassette decks i bought had a calibration feature, to get the best sound from each particular tape when recording. i told the guy i mostly used tdk-sa and he said then it's all set. that's the default calibration setting.